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13-Year-Old David Sills Is USC’s QB Of The Future

It may be too late to work on recruiting for the class of 2010, but at the University of Southern California Lane Kiffin is already busy setting his sights on the future; 2015 to be exact.

The first piece of his puzzle is already in place as 13-year-old phenom quarterback David Sills has made a commitment to the Trojans to be the man under center when his time comes. However, that will not be for another six years. Hopefully Lane is still around then.

So how did it come to a point where Kiffin had suddenly developed an interest in a young kid who is years away from playing at the college level? After all, it is much more difficult to predict football talent so early in one’s career, but in the case of Sills, it may not be as hard as you think. Just ask Steve Clarkson, Sills’ personal coach who has also mentored the likes of Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Barkley and Jimmy Clausen, among many others.

As ESPN Los Angeles sates, Kiffin approached Clarkson regarding another recruit, and Clarkson directed him towards a much younger target:

Clarkson said Kiffin asked him his opinion of the recruit and Clarkson said, “You might call me crazy, but you’ve known me a long time, right? And when I said if there was going to be a LeBron James of football it’d be Jimmy Clausen that turned out to be a pretty good prediction.

“And when I said Matt Barkley had the potential to be as good as Jimmy, he ended up winning Gatorade Player of the Year as a junior and starting at USC as a freshman, right?

“Well, I’ve got a kid now who is better than all of them and he’s in Delaware. You gotta take a look at him.” [ESPN-LA]

After seeing the 6-foot 13-year-old in action, Kiffin was convinced he had found his quarterback of the future.

So what’s next for Sills and USC?

“Well, we’re going to be out to California in a few weeks and we’ll meet Lane then,” Sills’ father said. “We’re excited to meet him. And we’re excited to verbally commit. Hopefully it all works out in the future.”